Because Christianity is bigger than Biblical manhood or Biblical womanhood (Blog of Retha Faurie)

Posts tagged ‘Nashville Statement’

I have argued before that the Nashville Statement, seemingly about gay and transgender people, is actually a stealth way to make evangelicals sign on sexist values. Here is another piece of evidence.

The CBMW web page currently starts with the Nashville statement right beside their Danvers statement on Biblical™ Manhood and Womanhood. These are the first and biggest things you see on the web page of an organization which exists to promote gender roles:
Almost at the top of the list of initial signatories, and one of the main endorsers, is Russell Moore. In a 2007 interview i, Moore said:

“… most of the people in our churches are in same-sex marriages right now, they just don’t realize it. Because you have people who have marriages in which we do not have male headship, you do not have male protection…”

According to Moore, to let go of male headship in marriage is to embrace same-sex marriage. As such, any statement about gays in the Nashville statement is also read, by Moore at least, as anti-egalitarian. And if all Christians are supposed to agree with them (Article 10 of the Nashville Statement), all Christians have to agree to stand for male headship in marriage.—————

i “Feminism in your Church and Home with Russell Moore, Randy Stinson, and C.J. Mahaney” – 9 Marks podcast 2007

At first glance, I thought it had nothing to do with my work. “The Nashville Statement: A Coalition for Human Sexuality”is a document about LGBT issues. And while those issues are important and relevant in Christianity, they are not what this blog is about. But it comes from the Council of “Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” (CBMW), which exists to promote sexism as a religious requirement for Christians1. Then I looked at it a second time.

The Nashville statement is insidious. It purports to be about gay and transgender issues. But, between the lines, it assumes and promotes sexism.

To make it even worse, it has not a single Bible text, making the meaning even vaguer. (For example, suppose someone said: “Man and woman were created to be different – Gen. 1:27″. I would understand it differently from if he said: “Man and woman were created to be different – Eph. 5:22″. The latter takes a text out of the “all believers should submit to one another – Eph. 5:21” and “God shows no favoritism – Eph. 6:9” context to promote sexism.)